I wrote last time about how I came to offer
The Traveller Adventure for a group of complete newbies (and one
old-timer) having longed for a regular group. The first evening seemed
to go as well as I could expect with the slight wrinkle that the amateur
dramatic pro – if that’s a thing – couldn’t make our first session at
rather short notice. I’d suggested he take on the part of Gvoudzon
knowing it needed a bit of pre-planned theatre as he’s thrown out of the
Museum of Aramis with some lines to learn. I reckoned he’d be great at
that. Everyone else would get randomly assigned characters on the night.

Not to worry, I thought it might actually work out quite nicely as it
gave the others, as the March Harrier
crew, a chance to get to know each other, bond a little and explore the
underground city of Leedor. In fact we had so much fun seeing the
creatures (some real, some holographic) in the park’s zoo, gambling at
the wamp-rat races on the seedier side of town and dealing with the
energetic Bwap factor that we only barely touched on anything actually
printed in the book. As ever, I may justly be accused of over doing it
on the sub-creation to give the place a sense of reality.

Anyway, we finished on the ‘cliffhanger’, if you can call it that,
which would result in the introduction of Gvoudzon next time. Yes,
enough fun was had that everyone was keen to book a second date a couple
of months later. I guess that’s a success!

However, that still wasn’t enough for J, the work colleague who’d
bravely tried out TravCon in March and loved it. How can I play more
Traveller, she would ask? I knew the
feeling but with Chronic Fatigue already limiting my evenings out to
once a month (usually Library book group, now alternating with TTA), I
didn’t think it was sensible to try another evening game, fun though
that might have been. I also thought about trying out some of the ‘solo’
adventures (one player, one referee) I’ve written but decided that might
be a bit intense.

It happened though, that D, the Gvoudzon player, and one other from
TTA were willing to try out a lunchtime session once every other week or
so. Just an hour, and a change from the usual Scrabble or cryptic
crosswords of lunchbreaks in any case. The idea was that I would develop
my (non-existent) off-the-cuff ability and would do no preparation for
these sessions at all.

J had already been generating a character or two and had a nigh-on
seven-foot army sergeant ready to go, D would carry over Gvoudzon and
continue to play a Vargr separated from his pack but in an alternate
universe to TTA, and E would create a brilliant archaeologist to join
the excitement. I now have not just one on-going campaign but two! Is
this wise? It’s certainly fun!